Just a few…
§ Ian Brill:

Before that the strangest thing to happen at the booth was having Stephen Baldwin and Mark Waid signing at the same time. Baldwin was on “stage left” and Waid to the opposite end. On one side you had people bring out their camera phones as if unseen puppet strings were lifting their arms from their sides. On the other a healthy smattering of fans would walk up to a creator they admire, share a few kind words and got their copy of Kingdom Come signed (and hopefully buy Potter’s Field). While I make no judgment calls here I still remembered to stand at the back of the booth and slowly move my eyes from one end to the other. I had the two spiritual halves of Comic-Con happening right in front of me, not even eight feet from each other. For an hour or so booth #2543 was the Harvey Dent of fandom.


§ Buzz Bags

Each day, as the sun rises over Comic-Con, marketing geniuses at the big media booths unpack boxes of promotional doodads to hand out to conventioneers eager to fill up on free stuff — stickers, posters, T-shirts, rub-on tattoos, plastic rings, hats and the ever-useful swag bag. As Jen mentioned in an earlier post, yesterday’s hot item — the animated “Wonder Woman” swag bag — was supplanted today by the equally outsized “Watchmen” swag bag you see above. It’s useful because the bags give you a place to put all your other swag. And so a million (okay, a few thousand) mobile billboards are launched out into the world — helping, it is hoped, to build buzz for one’s product.


§ Various disgruntled media types

OK, that’s pretty funny. Not fair, but an acutely observed generalization, nevertheless. (Can a generalization also be acute?) MSN Movies Editor Dave McCoy, an old friend, had his Comic-Con epiphany after seeing a wooden stake used by Buffy. Yes, the Buffy. And yet, it took Dave a couple days to figure out why he initially wasn’t enjoying Comic-Con as much as he thought he should. His title for his blog post: “A snob out of water”.


§ Steve Marmel, animation and comedy guy, has a great post on his Facebook page which I can’t link to, but I will, against the rules, post the first few paragraphs, because he summed it all up very well:

I, like a lot of people, made my annual pilgrimage to the San Diego Comic-Con. I, like many of the people who have gone as often as I have gone, understand the cons of the con. We make the jokes. But we’re allowed to.

It’s our f***ing party.


It is our F***ing party. Thanks for reminding us, Steve.

7 COMMENTS

  1. A big line for Stephen Baldwin? That’s just kind of sad. It’s been 13 years since he made a good movie, and even then he was the most annoying part. Are there a lot of Slapstick 2 fans out there or something?

  5. Those oversize bags sure had their 1001 uses?

    Certain girls went walking around the floor wearing them as dresses. Capes were made out of them – but me, I looked like a idiot, because of my stout frame had me practically drag the bag by my feet –

    plus I was handed the lousy Pushing Daisies and Chuck one.

    I guess they ran out of Wonder Woman and the Watchman ones by Saturday.

    ~

    Coat

  6. My goal was to visit the Illustrators exhibits on Friday afternoon, but to get there from the Golden/Silver Age Pavilion I found myself in the Cattle Zone, both to and fro, and it was while coming back towards the Small Press area that I became embroiled in crowd nirvana. I don’t know where exactly I was, some point southwest of the Night Owl ship, near Lions Gate, close to Hasbro and Lost Boys, the freakin’ Event Map only knows. All I’m certain of is that I was surrounded by everyone. Everyone and their family and buddies, alongside brave toddlers in strollers and stalwart buggies for the disabled, and countless Jokers. Suddenly from the right all these rolled posters were tossed into the air, like jettisoned light sabers, flying above us, and the crowd just stopped and gawked and our arms raised and reached for them and it just became one of those moments where you’re beyond any kind of flight of fancy. It was unbelievable. And then the posters stopped soaring, and I could feel myself starting to moo, and the crowd plodded on, ever so slowly. Happy California cows. That moment, it’s with me forever. I can’t wait for next year.

  7. “It is not your party. It is not our party. We are guests at the party.”

    So whose party is it then?

    And just like at any party, an influx of the wrong type of people leads to problems. So whoever this party belongs to should stop inviting those rich bullies.

Comments are closed.